"It is quite--quite wonderful!" Beth subtly conveyed the impression that on the contrary she thought it was dreadful. Kate drew back her head a little and looked at her visitor. "Is it?" coolly. "And Hugh never has told me a word about you--he's been so reticent." She laid her finger tips upon his arm in proprietory fashion while a sly malice shone through the mischievousness of her smile. Disston colored. Kate replied ironically: "Perhaps he is one of those who do not boast of their acquaintance with sheepherders." "Kate!" he protested vigorously. She regarded him with a faint inscrutable smile until Bowers interrupted: "How many bells shall I put on them yearlin's?" "One in fifty; and cut those five wethers out of the ewe herd. Catch those yearling ewes with the wether earmark and change to the shoe-string." "What do you want done with that feller in the pen?" "Saw his horn off and I'll throw him into the buck herd later." "Where'll Oleson hold his sheep?" "Well up the creek; and if he lets them mix again--" "He says he can't do nothin' without a dog," Bowers ventured. "Then he'd better quit right now--you can tell him." Kate's voice was curt, incisive, her tone final. "He can't use a dog on these Rambouillets--they're high-strung, nervous, different from the merinos. Anyway, I won't have it." She swung about to indicate that the conversation was ended. "That's all Greek to me. Do you understand it, Hugh?" Miss Rathburn's lofty drawl, her faintly patronizing manner, all indicated amusement. "I don't know much about sheep," he admitted. "Do you know--" to Kate, with all her social manner--"you are deliciously unique?" Kate, who detected the sneer, but had no social manner to meet it, asked brusquely: "In what way?" "You're so--" she hesitated for a word and seemed to search her vocabulary for the right one--"so strong-minded." Kate's eyes were sparkling. "If by that you mean intelligent, I thank you for the compliment, and I'm sorry that I can't--" She checked herself, but the inference was clear that she intended to add--"return it." Miss Rathburn's fair skin became a deeper pink than even a pink-lined parasol warranted, while Kate addressed herself to Disston exclusively. Disston had listened in dismay. Whatever was the matter? In truth, it must be, he told himself, that women were natural enemies. He never had seen this feline streak in Beth to recognize it, and he had felt instinctively that, on Kate's side, from the first glance she had not liked her visitor.